


Running Wild

by TheMuchTooMerryMaiden



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: A deer gets eaten, Community: lewis_challenge, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lewis Fright Fest 2016, Magdalen's Deer Park, Werewolf, brief mention of suicidal thoughts, creature feature
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 04:43:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8432299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMuchTooMerryMaiden/pseuds/TheMuchTooMerryMaiden
Summary: It's been a part of James' life for a long time now and no-one has found out, yet...





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been a sucker for the unhappy were-wolf trope, I think it was seeing Oliver Reed's werewolf at far too early an age!
> 
> TW: A deer gets eaten by a predator, it's not graphically described but it may bother people, so I'm warning. Also there's a (very) brief mention of suicidal thoughts
> 
> Written for the Lewis Challenge Fright Fest 2016

As the moon edges itself towards full he can feel it, stronger and stronger each day, pulling at him. It’s something he has to resist, if he didn’t he would be pulled into his other shape even though there’s seven days before the full moon. One time he’d thought about just letting go and seeing what happened, after all he knows what will happen at the full moon, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Not having that control one day in every 29.5 was bad enough, any more of it and he might not come back.

Of course, when they had first worked together, long before he’d known anything, Robbie had noticed something was up, James had overheard him once talking to Laura,

“He’s a moody sod a lot of the time, but more or less the end of the month he’s always worse, do you think he has money troubles?”

It wasn’t said in a gossipy way, he could hear the genuine concern in his new boss’ tone of voice, but it still made him hot and cold all over, what if he found out? Everything he’d worked for all these years would be gone.

 

He can’t take a day off work every 29.5 days. He has to plan around it, taking leave only when there’s no other way. All coppers have heard and claim to have experienced what members of the public are like at full moon, extra mental, extra stroppy, much more likely to do stupid things. It puts James even more on his guard, his colleagues tend to know the phases of the moon, not as well as he does but still, he doesn’t want any of them to work out the pattern, to guess his secret to know what he is.

It was inevitable that eventually he would slip up. He’s read enough to know that, in the end the monster will not be controlled, it’s too strong, he will be too weak. Unfortunately, he’s also too weak to do what he should have done when he was first bitten, when he became an abomination. Instead he … continues, knowing that every moon could be the one when he loses control completely and kills or does the thing that is worse than killing. The self-loathing wars constantly with what self-preservation instinct he’s got and some months he thinks about ending it twenty times a day.

That last day starts innocuously enough. It’s a good day. There’s a feeling of relief when the day finally arrives, after tonight it’ll be over for another month, there’ll be time when he at least gets to pretend that he’s normal. When they’ve caught their woman, when she’s fallen over herself to confess, to establish the justification she feels for the whole stupid situation, Robbie suggests they go for a drink and James looks at his watch and considers the timing, and replies why not? It turns out that why not is that it’s easy to lose track of time.

“God, you’re a lightweight tonight,”

James looks at his watch, knows it should mean something, tries to listen to what Robbie is saying to him,

“Let’s get you home,” he says, a light in his eyes that James has always loved, “you need to get more sleep, lad, perhaps then you’d be better able to take your drink,”

James lets himself be manhandled, in truth he could walk unaided but just this once he wants the feel of Robbie’s strong arms holding him up keeping him secure.

Once he's in the car Robbie reaches over him to fasten his seat belt. It’s the scent of Robbie when he leans across him. That’s when James feels it, the compulsion to bite, to feel hot, human blood on his tongue even though he never has, to tear and rip. It shakes him out of his stupor, he needs to get away from people, most particularly from Robbie. He claws at the seat belt, his hands are clumsy, beginning to change, not wanting to be hands with fingers. It must only be seconds, although it feels like forever, before he’s off out of the car, running as well as he can in this intermediate state.

His thought processes are different when he’s in his other form. He’d tried to do some reading when this had first happened, but the libraries in Cambridge and later in the seminary and Oxford were thin on material about things like him, so he doesn’t know if it’s unusual how much of himself he keeps, he’s just glad that it’s enough for him to focus on keeping out of the way of human beings. Normally he has things better planned, he knows where he’s going, knows his routes. Tonight he has none of that he just has instinct and hunger.

Getting over the wall is little trouble for him. It wouldn’t be if he were fully human, it certainly isn’t at the full moon. Instinct keeps him to the shadows and the fence might as well not be there. It’s lateish and cold and the bit of him that’s still him is glad of these things. Not likely to be any late-night wanderers, just him and his prey. He can smell them, smell the blood pounding in their veins and he can hear them, scattering, looking for a way out that isn’t there. They are as trapped as he is.

After he lopes away from the remains; he shouldn’t be found with the carcass, he retreats back into the undergrowth, towards the fence and the way out. He’s never fed anywhere this public before, he is uneasy and nervous but he also knows how exposed he would be if he went back onto the street. He can wait if he can get somewhere that’s hidden enough.

Curled up he starts to wait the night out but he detects a scent that’s at once the best in the world and the one of which he is most afraid. It’s getting nearer.

“James?” 

The familiar voice filla him with terror but all he can do in this state is to whine, but Robbie can't understand that he needs to get away as fast as he can. James hadn’t understood all those years ago, that’s how he ended up here.

“James? Come out, lad, I’ll see you right, come on,”

But he wouldn’t see him right, he would see him and run and come back with more people and James can't see any good end to this, no way that doesn't lead to disaster. So he growls, trying to sound as much like the ur-wolf that scared the caveman as he can.

“That won’t work, lad,” Robbie says, “I know you won’t hurt me,” he pauses and James realises that amazingly he can't sense any fear from him, “I’m coming to you if you won’t come to me.”

James’ eyesight is not that much better in this form, and it's lightless in the thicket that he’d escaped to but the noise of Robbie pushing through the undergrowth is loud and James’ muscles tense as Robbie’s scent becomes clearer, his only thought, what if I hurt him, worse, what if I turn him, what if I have no self-control like all my kind? 

 

The full moon still pulls at him, he can still feel the gradual change of the moon, but now he knows he will be safe, that night, so long ago now was not the end of everything.


End file.
